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The best thing about the last few issues of this book has been seeing 3 big threats loom towards Aquaman without him really knowing about them. Here, all of it comes crashing down on his head. He has to deal with Xebel, with the Scavenger attacking Atlantis, with the first King, and oh yeah, up on the Surface, some people are trying to rescue Ocean Master.

This was a crazily packed issue, and Johns and Pelletier really brought their a-game in the battle sequences, which were epic, and surprisingly brutal. That guy Urn got blown to pieces right on panel! Jeezus. It was also pretty damn cool to see Aquaman summon Topo to take out the Scavenger’s troops, that was a great scene, and a cool demonstration of just how powerful this character is.

The only real downside to this series continues to be the relationship between Aquaman and Mera, which I have no interest in. It’s crazy that DC got rid of pretty much every other superhero marriage for the New 52, and kept this one, the least interesting one. Gah! Hopefully Aquaman will find out that Mera was sent to kill him soon and they will break up.

But I doubt that, considering this issue does something pretty surprising right at the end and jumps forward 6 months. After summoning Topo, Aquaman passes out, and he’s out of it for 6 whole months, which is crazy. I’m very interested to see who’s in charge of Atlantis after this, is it Orm? The First King? Scavenger? Hmmm. Other titles like Ultimate Spider-Man have used a time-jump to good effect, so hopefully Johns can do the same for Aquaman. Although, how come the Justice League didn’t notice that one of their guys was missing for that long?

For me, the worst part of this story are the lingering threads left over from the "Throne of Atlantis" arc. Sorry, I'm not overly concerned with Murk and Tula trying to break Orm out of prison on the surface.

Is it just me or does the pacing of this story feel a little sluggish? Not sure how I feel about the time jump and I guess that I will have to wait until October to find out what's going on. Considering the problems that I have with the pacing, I don't know that this issue was a good issue to tide me over until it returns.